He will be able to buy anything he wants but he doesn't seem that interested. "I have any material object I particularly want," he says. "Through the business, I have been financially comfortable for a long period of time. I don't see this as changing my life."

Chilton, 43, whose fortune is wrapped up in his 12pc stake in Benfield, is even vaguer when I ask him what he does have. There is the Surrey farm where he lives with his wife Nadine and children Tom, 17, Alice, 14, and Max, 11.

He drives a Land Rover and BMW X5. Does he live luxuriously? He laughs: "That's a hairy old question, isn't it? I have a normal family life. I have three kids. I am still married to the girl I went to primary school with. When I am not at work, my life revolves around them."

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He won't be buying himself a helicopter. He doesn't fly in them anymore, following the death of Benfield chairman Matthew Harding in a helicopter crash six years ago.

Chilton doesn't like being asked about his wealth or about the late Chelsea vice-chairman and got upset when both subjects came up at last month's flotation announcement. With his huge frame, Chilton isn't a man to get into a fight with. It was just as well that those conversations were over the telephone.

He's more relaxed when we meet at Benfield's premises in the City. The decor - bright purple and lime chairs and stripey frosted glass - is so extrovert that one almost forgets that the company operates in reinsurance. It's the office one would expect of an advertising company and Chilton is all smiles.

"That great phone call we had," is how he refers to our heated encounter. "I'm sorry. The anniversary of six years is just up, so it was very pertinent in my mind. I didn't particularly want to get into a debate I didn't think was relevant."

The flotation will need a better charm offensive and Chilton does his best, stressing that the listing is not an opportunity for him to realise his riches.

Chilton joined Benfield Lovick & Rees in 1982 and gained his shares when he led a management buyout of the company with Mr Harding, Mike Rees, one of the original Benfield partners, and Benfield chairman John Coldman in 1988.

The firm had $4m (£2.5m) profits and 50 staff. "I put in two-and-a-half times my mortgage. How about that?" he says. "It was a big investment for me at the time." He has never sold Benfield shares and has no plans to do so.

Chilton knows he also has to talk a bit about Matthew Harding. "My working life during the buyout with John, Mike and Matthew was a very exciting time," he recalls.

"We enjoyed each others' company enormously. We laughed and at times cried together. I always went to Chelsea-Spurs games with Matthew so he could humiliate me when Spurs lost.

"It was a great tragedy when Matthew died. I was woken to hear that he had been injured and I came into the office at 2 or 3 in the morning. Just as I got into the office, I got a call to say he was definitely dead. It was a defining moment for the group.

"Any time when you lose not only your closest friend but also your closest business colleague, it puts the pressure on the core team to demonstrate they can deliver."

Just how rocky a time was it for Benfield? Chilton looks to his PR man for guidance. "We decided the day after Matthew died to resign all of the accounts that Matthew handled and put ourselves forward for reappointment based on a different system. All those customers remained loyal to the group.

"We took a decision to completely refocus because all the business was produced by a handful of people. We saw the risk of that after the helicopter crash. Tony Burridge, who worked on the non-marine side, was also in the helicopter with Matthew so we lost two of our five producers.

"We did not want that risk going forward. It was a very difficult time for the group but we have boosted the turnover tenfold in the past six years from $45m to $450m. We were a niche business with one overseas office in Hamburg. Today, we have a global presence with 37 offices around the world and nearly 1,700 staff."

Chilton is much more interested in Benfield's future. The company paid £120m for broker Greig Fester five years ago and $176m for US broker EW Blanch last year, when Benfield made operating profits of £35m. It is the world's third biggest reinsurance broker behind American giants Aon and Marsh, which is said to have made an informal approach to buy Benfield earlier this year.

"We thought there was a unique opportunity to have an independent specialist reinsurance broker," Chilton remembers. "We are very proud of what we have built. We think there are significant opportunities for further growth. We are a natural consolidator of specialist reinsurers."

Perhaps Benfield will become a bid target itself but all Chilton will say about the Marsh approach is: "We are regularly in discussions with the chief executives of all the leading brokers but have never entered into due diligence with any of these businesses. We remain fiercely independent."

Chilton entered Lloyd's at 18 by joining broker CT Bowring. "I was leaving school and my father said 'Whatever you do, don't go into insurance,"' he recalls.

"But if someone tells me not to do something, I tend to look at it and think that there may be opportunities there." He moved into reinsurance and then Matthew Harding asked him to join Benfield, which had been formed in the 1970s but had just 20 employees and £3-£4m turnover.

Do ordinary mortals know what reinsurance is, I ask. "No. Probably not," he laughs. "I think that as soon as you explain that you are protecting insurance companies from their accumulation risk, that no one insurer in any one particular area of exposure can take all the risk in that market and this is a way of spreading that risk, I think they start to understand it."

This may be a little optimistic but Chilton is away now. "One needs insurance to protect one's balance sheet and one's way of doing business. I think in time people have forgotten about that. They think of it as an unnecessary evil, something that they can save money on. It is terribly important.

"Today there are companies going out of business because they cannot obtain the insurance coverage they were once able to achieve.

"If there had been better risk management over the years, then insurers would grant them that coverage. People used to say that British Airways spent more on peanuts than on its aviation insurance. Probably for a good period of time, that was true. As a passenger is that something you would have wanted to know? Probably not."

What about Chilton's own future? He tries his best to be objective. "If at any stage I don't help the value of the business, I will be the first person to recommend it is time for me to do whatever you do when you don't do what I do.

"I don't really know what that is but, whatever it is, I will do it. I am reasonably selfless in my love of Benfield. The company is greater than any one individual. We proved that six years ago."

It sounds all-consuming. No wonder he cherishes the moments he can spend with Nadine, who he started romancing when he was 18 and married at 23.

His other free time seems to be spent supporting the career of Tom, a professional racing driver who competes in the British Touring Car Championship. Does he fret about his safety? "No, I am not at all worried about him. He does an enormous amount of training. It is more dangerous crossing the road."

So what does Chilton really want for Christmas? He laughs again. "I want to be healthy, wealthy and wise. What I want most is for this article to be nice. I will forgo all presents for that. Just show me in a reasonably serious light."